Ministers will today step up pressure on universities to increase the number of state school pupils they recruit by setting out ways for them to adopt an academy.

Top universities will have to set up "deep-rooted" partnerships with local schools in order to talent-spot state school pupils, the secretary of state for universities, John Denham, told the Guardian.

The minister said he wanted the question of bias against pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds "settled" before a review in 2009 of top-up fees which universities hope will pave the way for them to charge more. "This whole area of partnership - whether academies or trusts - is becoming increasingly important in our thinking about the next stage of widening participation to universities and ... the Russell Group institutions," he said.

"This is about talent spotting, not social engineering. Universities need to form deep-rooted partnerships with schools to get the best people." He added: "I don't want to go into the fees review without settling this debate."

The 2009 top-up fee review was promised when the Commons voted to introduce higher fees. The review was to appease rebel Labour MPs who feared the higher fees would make universities even more middle class. It will examine the effect the policy has had on applications from socially disadvantaged areas.

The minister's launch of a blueprint for universities to partner with schools takes place today at University College London, which has already announced plans to sponsor an academy. It follows research last month which found that 100 schools, four-fifths from the private sector, account for nearly a third of all students at Oxford or Cambridge.

Gordon Brown first made clear his commitment to widening participation in higher education in 2000 in a tirade against Oxford University, which refused to admit a North Tyneside state schoolgirl, Laura Spence, to a medical degree, despite the fact she was expected to get five A grades at A-level.

Nine universities, including UCL, Imperial College London and Manchester, have expressed an interest in the academy programme, according to the schools secretary, Ed Balls, who in July scrapped a proviso that they contribute £2m in sponsorship funds. Other universities have resisted buying into the scheme, claiming that they are working on their own schemes to attract state school pupils.

Mr Denham said that, rather than threatening universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, he wanted to "win the argument" that widening participation was the only way that universities would get the best candidates. "It's in the interest of institutions themselves," he said.

The government's enthusiasm for university sponsors for academies has also been seen by opponents of the programme as an attempt to legitimise it in the face of critics who have argued that it has been dominated by sponsors from business who know little about education.

Mr Denham, and the schools minister Lord Adonis, will launch the document at University College London, which is applying to sponsor an academy in Camden, north London. It has run into local opposition but is likely to get final approval next month. Today's launch follows a series of tense meetings for the university with the local authority, and last night UCL officials were invited to a meeting with local members of the Campaign for State Education, which opposes the academy. Other parents are threatening a legal challenge over the process by which the academy has been proposed.